INTER-COLLEGIATE RECORDS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1895.
| Event. | Made by. | ||||
| { E. J. Wendell, Harvard; W. | |||||
| { Baker, Harvard; C. H. | |||||
| 100-yard dash | 10 | sec. | { Sherrill, Yale; L. Cary, | ||
| { Princeton; E. S. Ramsdell, | |||||
| { Penn. | |||||
| 220-yard dash | 21-4/5 | " | L. H. Cary, Princeton. | ||
| Quarter-mile run | 47-3/4 | " | W. Baker, Harvard. | ||
| Half-mile run | 1 | m. | 55-1/4 | " | W. C. Dohm, Princeton. |
| Mile run | 4 | " | 23-2/5 | " | G. W. Orton, Penn. |
| Mile walk | 6 | " | 42-4/5 | " | F. A. Borcheling, Princeton. |
| 120-yard hurdle | 15-4/5 | " | H. L. Williams, Yale. | ||
| 220-yard hurdle | 24-3/5 | " | J. L. Bremer, Harvard. | ||
| Two-mile bicycle | 4 | " | 10 | " | W. D. Osgood, Penn. |
| Running high jump | 6 | ft. | 4 | in. | W. B. Page, Penn. |
| Running broad jump | 23 | " | L. P. Sheldon, Yale. | ||
| Pole vault | 11 | " | 2-3/4 | " | C. T. Buckholz, Penn. |
| Throwing 16-lb. ham'r | 135 | " | 7-1/2 | " | W. O. Hickok, Yale. |
| Putting 16-lb. shot | 44 | " | 1-1/2 | " | W. O. Hickok, Yale. |
How is it possible to gauge the performances of school champions with those of others—college-men and athletic club amateurs—when we have no common ratio? We cannot, of course. For instance, take Beers's record of 15-3/5 sec. in the high hurdles, made at the New York Interscholastics last May. On paper this looks very well. It apparently beats the inter-collegiate record made by Harry Williams in 1891, by one-fifth of a second. But it really does not. Beers ran his race over lower hurdles, and so it is not possible to make a comparison. The hurdles used by the N.Y.I.S.A.A. are only 3 feet high, whereas the inter-collegiate sticks are 3 ft. 6 in. Some of the interscholastic associations use the standard 3 ft. 6 in. hurdles, but as it was impossible to ascertain exactly what the records were that had been made over these at school meetings in the past, I took the fastest time over the dwarfed hurdles, and let it go in as a fit companion for the 12-lb. shot and hammer and the mile bicycle-race.
In the future, however, I shall give little attention to these one-eyed records. The college associations have set up a standard of distance and weight which experience has shown to be a good one. A sufficient number of interscholastic associations have adopted the same standard, thereby making it clearly evident that it is none too high for school-boy athletes. Therefore, in making out a comparative table of college and school records, this Department will accept the standard established by the I.C.A.A.A. and adopted by the majority of the interscholastic associations. If in the near future a general interscholastic league is formed, I feel sure that its legislators will agree with me in this, and will adopt the same course when they lay out their programme.
It is to be regretted that the Oakland, Cal., High-School athletic team was unable to accept the Stockton High-School's challenge for dual games to be held on June 15th last, but unless something unforeseen turns up the meeting will be held soon after the next school term begins, which is in August. The California schools open about five weeks earlier than our Eastern institutions, and the football season with them, therefore, starts in the closing days of summer. There will also be the semi-annual field day of the Academic Athletic League at about that time, or in September, and bicycle road races, in which teams from the several schools of the A.A.L. will be matched against one another. At the field day there will be a contest for the all 'round championship of the Pacific Coast Association. Five or six events will be selected from the programme, and every competitor for the championship will have to compete in each one, the champion to be the winner of the greatest number of points.
The object of this athletic Department in Harper's Round Table is not only to criticise and comment upon the various sports of the calender, but also to explain any intricate points of these games, to answer questions on matters of sport and athletics, and to give all such information as shall justly come under the head of Interscholastic Sport. A number of correspondents have requested that some space be devoted to an explanation of the "100-up" method of scoring in tennis, and to give the rules for odds. This "100-up" method, sometimes called the "Pastime" system, was devised a few years ago to meet the defects of the old system of scoring, which had been handed down to us from the ancient English game of tennis. The latter has a good many disadvantages in spite of its universal use, the chief objection being that it frequently happens in a match that a player scores more strokes, or even more games, than his antagonist, and yet is beaten. This, of course, is manifestly unfair; and as for handicaps, in which more than two players are competing, the complex and unsatisfactory system of adjusting the odds according to the old way is unnecessarily complicated.
The rules for the "100-up" method are comparatively simple and very easily remembered after having been used once or twice. The player who serves first must serve six times in succession, and then his opponent does the same, the service changing always after each one has served six consecutive times. One fault and one good service; two faults; or one good service counts as a service. After the first, third, fifth, or, in other words, every alternate series of service, the players change courts, thus making each six successive services one series of services. The first player to score one hundred points wins the game; but the match can be played for any number of points—more or less than a hundred—as the contestants may agree upon beforehand. The usual figure, however, is one hundred. If the score comes to be 99-all, play goes on as before, until one of the players has a majority of two points. He then wins; but no game can be won by a lesser majority than two points.
The odds in the regular old-fashioned method of counting are, briefly, thus: A "bisque" is one point that can be taken by the receiver of the odds at any time during the set except after a service is delivered, or, if he is serving, after a fault. "Half fifteen" is one stroke given at the beginning of the second, fourth, and every alternate game of a set, and "fifteen" is one stroke given at the beginning of every game. In the same way "thirty" is two strokes given at the beginning of every game, whereas "half thirty" is one stroke given at the beginning of the first game, two at the beginning of the second, one at the beginning of the third, and so on, two and one, alternately, until the end of the set. "Forty" is three strokes before every game, "half forty" three and two, alternately, as before. "Owed odds" signifies that the giver of the odds starts behind scratch. Thus "owe half fifteen" means that one stroke is owed at the beginning of the first, third, fifth, and every alternate game of the set. Other "owed odds" are reckoned inversely in the same manner as given odds. If a player gives odds of "half court," he agrees to play in a certain half of the court, either the right or the left, and he loses a stroke whenever he returns a ball outside any of the lines that bound that half court.
But the newest of all the systems of odds, and the one now most generally used by experts, is called the "quarter" system. In this method fifteen is divided into four quarters, and thus a closer handicap may be obtained. "One quarter" of fifteen is one stroke given at the beginning of the second, sixth, and every fourth game thereafter in the set. "Two quarters" (the "half fifteen" spoken of above) is one stroke at the beginning of the second, fourth, sixth, etc., games. "Three quarters" is one stroke at the beginning of the second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth games, and so on. When it is "odds owed," as before, "one quarter" is one stroke in the first and fifth games; "two quarters" is one stroke in the first and third; and "three quarters" is one stroke in the first, third, and fourth games, and so on to the end of the set. In order to get odds at a similar ratio when the match is being scored on the "100-up" system, the following table of equivalents has been adopted:
| 1 | quarter of | 15 | = | 5 | points per | 100 |
| 2 | quarters | " | 11 | " | " | |
| 3 | " | " | 16 | " | " | |
| 15 | " | " | 22 | " | " | |
| 15.1 | " | " | 27 | " | " | |
| 15.2 | " | " | 32 | " | " | |
| 15.3 | " | " | 38 | " | " | |
| 30 | " | " | 43 | " | " | |
| 30.1 | " | " | 49 | " | " | |
| 30.2 | " | " | 54 | " | " | |
| 30.3 | " | " | 59 | " | " | |
| 40 | " | " | 65 | " | " |